


dents in our fingers

by lejf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Sam Plays the Piano, and the violin, and they kiss and it's all sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8886166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lejf/pseuds/lejf
Summary: Dean hadn’t known that Sam could play any sort of instrument at all.





	

He was waiting to pick up Sammy, dozing against the window in the parking lot with his eyes mostly closed and absently drumming out the Metallica song still rattling in his ears. The number of kids around were sparse, gone home already safe and sound to their families of mothers and fathers and pet dogs and cousins and grandparents and sisters and brothers. There were teachers walking around in their high heels and stuffy clothes, heading for some sort of meeting, talking about curriculums and essays and useless things.

Where was Sammy? Dammit. He peered down at his phone (couldn't help but smile at the wallpaper of Sam); no missed calls, no messages. Sam wasn’t picking up. Little punk. What did he think he was doing?

Got out, patted his baby a little reassuring _be back soon_ and was moving across school grounds. There was something absurd about walking down corridors and lockers and closed doors with little glass windows. Leather creaked on his shoulders. Gun still at his hip. Six knives stowed away in his shoes and pockets and sleeves.

But Dean was an expert. He shed his image like water and let it drip off him, let a lascivious grin grow, slipped into an easy sway and not a stalk. He passed a group of girls who twittered at him, asked if they knew where a certain Sam Winchester was. Their knees went weak, hid their faces behind their hands and blushed and giggled and pointed him to the music rooms just down the halls and on the second right.

High schoolers just didn’t know better. Except Sammy. Sam was jaded already. He took the world-weariness off Dean’s shoulders and all onto himself.

Halfway there he remembered Sammy in the morning, _Dean, I’m staying at school late today._ Fuck. Dean was already here and off work. Might as well. The door was open and– Dean didn’t know why he didn’t go in. Leant against the wall outside and listened instead, glanced through the doorframe because the music was like a thread around his heart, stupid as that sounded, tugging him in, and he couldn’t just _not_.

Sam was there, back angled to the door, playing at an upright piano.

The music was grand, sweeping, enthralling. Sam picked up a new mantle and flickered through every shade of light for each different phrase and expression. He was intense, his touch fluid, hand rolling a cascade of notes that spilt around him like shattered glass and sprayed sunlight across the span of his fingers, each curve of his face. Sam’s devoted focus was perfect for music, for this elegant performance. His breath fell in time with the beat that he spun from his fingertips, and Dean was reminded suddenly of the way Sam’s smile could bring in every stranger on the street. Sam caught hearts, caught the keys, and tugged them all after him to grow a shifting tapestry.

Dean loved rock, metal, anything he could blare, but it was impossible not to be caught up in Sam. Sam moved the sea, created tides and swells in the piece that were impossible to resist. When his touch turned delicate, Dean ached to hear, and when the music built to a roar — climbing and climbing and suspended in that one moment at the top of the world —, Dean let it crash over him and smash, scatter, into a thousand iridescent shards.

When Sam’s music cooled and slowed, gentled into the lapping of waves, and halted, Dean was still trying to gather up the pieces of himself. He could hear ghosts of the music around him like silken webs. Took a deep breath, leaned back, head against the wall, hesitated, moved to enter, but the sound of strings stopped him.

He could recognise when it wasn’t music — when it was just Sam dragging a bow across strings in double stops to tune, because when Sam _did_ start to play... Dean wanted to burst in there, gather Sam into his arms, cradle him; but he knew that as soon as he stepped foot over the threshold, Sam’s masks would come down and he’d back away, lock himself up, never return here again.

On the violin, there was no option for Sam but to hold his head high and let his entire body sway with each quivering, trembling note, lashes cast out against his skin. Notes melted into each other in liquid portamentos, melody crying out as if held back by a physical barrier and aching to reach across the space between them. The violin seemed so small and fragile in his hands, but he clutched onto it with such familiarity and warm welcome that it seemed to be an extension of him. Sam, and his pain.

When Sam saw Dean standing in the doorway, his face went white with shock, flooded with fear, then burned red with shame. The music cut off like a head severed, and the violin was lowered to a nearby chair. Sam crumpled. He put the instrument down with his shoulders downturned, already drawing into himself, never once looking at Dean.

Dean opened his mouth and didn’t know what to say. Nice tunes, Sam? Who’re you planning to serenade? He felt awkward and out of place, trying to meet the eyes of his brother, knowing that he needed to do  _something._

Sam’s fingers were loosening the bow. Sam had beautiful hands, huge and spanning — a lot like Dean’s, but even longer and slimmer and less threaded with veins and that crookedness that was brought on by hard work. Sam was determined not to face him, taking his time to remove the shoulder rest and place the violin back into its case, carefully tucking each part away and zipping it up.

Sam, Sam and his music–

Dean _loathed_ it.

Because Dean was destined to destroy it.

Look at how Dean would twist Sam and his gentle hands. Look how Dean would take Sam’s music, his creations that he cradled so lovingly — and crush them all under his boot. Replace them with cold steel and calluses. Tell him to fire a gun and to give up his dream. Fuck. How could he do that to Sam?

He had to do _something_ for Sam. Show him that it was okay. 

When Sam looked up, Dean was sitting by the wall, the light from the windows falling around him, head bowed.

Sam had not known Dean could play any instrument at all until he saw him that day, curled over the guitar as though he was too ragged and tangled to play, hesitantly stringing out notes and shyly weaving them through the air, wide fingers gently tugging the strings, left hand pressing tightly enough that each note was crisp and clear and alone.

In a heartbeat, Sam was on his knees in front of Dean, and he sunk down as though praying or pleading, hand reaching for Dean’s, lightly prising them off the strings and fitting their hands together so that their fingertips — dented from metal and nylon — grazed across each other.

Dean looked down, Sam looked up, and all their walls had fallen apart. He could only wonder when was the last time they’d actually looked each other in the eyes, because Sam felt like he was being flayed alive, burning from the inside out.

Suddenly Sam was surging forwards with their intertwined hands coming forwards to bracket Dean’s head, and they were kissing, kissing alone in an empty room and kissing away all their fears under the thought of masks and sunshine.

**Author's Note:**

> Really wanted to write Sam on the piano. He has magnificent hands... not that large hands are needed for magnificent playing.
> 
> ohwaitRACHMANINOFF _damn it._


End file.
